Shoddy defense prevents West Michigan Whitecaps from holiday win

COMSTOCK PARK – Shaky defense has been a sore spot for the West Michigan Whitecaps throughout this season.

It reared its ugly head again Thursday night before a massive Fourth of July crowd of 8,502 at Fifth Third Ballpark.

The Whitecaps committed two errors and had a key defensive miscue in a 7-5 loss to the Great Lakes Loons.

“It’s always frustrating when stuff like that happens, and nobody is trying to mess up out there,” said Whitecaps third baseman Jason King, who reached base four times with a home run, single and two walks.

“It happens at this level because everybody is young, and we just have to minimize it and hope that it doesn’t happen every night.”

West Michigan (6-9, 39-46) suffered its seventh loss in the last eight games and dropped to 3-7 against Loons this season.

Three of Great Lakes’ runs were unearned, but an error that wasn’t charged directly led to two more runs.

A fly ball to left field in the second inning with two outs dropped between Danry Vasquez and Curt Powell. The Loons took advantage of the miscue and grabbed a 2-1 lead that they would never relinquish.

“That’s sort of our season in a nutshell,” said West Michigan manager Larry Parrish, whose team has committed at least one error in 60 of their 85 games.
“A pop up to left field and we’re out of that inning, but we don’t make it, and the thing drops and they score two runs. That’s the difference in the game right there. We’re still playing if we don’t do that.”

West Michigan bunched both of its errors in the seventh inning, and the Loons scored three unearned runs to go ahead 7-2.

Jake Stewart crushed a three-run home run over the left field wall in the eighth to trim the deficit to 7-5.

“He squared that one up, and it was hit well and closed the gap and gave us a chance,” Parrish said. “We had some runners on earlier also that we didn’t score, and overall, you have to point back to the runs we gave them. It’s been our Achilles Heel all year.

The Whitecaps went 2 for 9 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine base runners.

West Michigan starter Chad Smith left the game in the second inning when he was struck in the right elbow by the shattered bat of James Baldwin.

Smith had his back turned when the bat hit him and he fell to the ground.

“I’ve never had that happen before, and I knew he broke the bat, and I was looking at the second baseman, and all of a sudden I got hit,” Smith said. “It would’ve been fine if it hit me in the back, but it hit me in the elbow.”

Said Parrish: “It was serious enough to knock him out of the game, which we didn’t need. We thought it hit him in the back, but there was a mark from where it hit him on the elbow.”

Yorfrank Lopez replaced Smith and took the loss after allowing three runs on four hits in 3 1/3 innings.

Powell, making his second start, had his first hits as a Whitecap and went 2 for 4. Stewart added a double in the third.

The Whitecaps and Loons wrap up their four-game home-and-home series 7 p.m. Friday at Fifth Third Ballpark.